Yesterday, I addressed the topic of whether a child abuse survivor can get triggered without having any memories of flashback associated with the triggering. On that blog entry, a reader posted the following comment:
I had always thought my triggering was me just being unbalanced and messed up. I was verrry hard on myself and also thought I was wrong and “over-the-top,” emotionally unstable, etc. I relate with Brynn in that at first, I didn’t have memories or flashbacks attached. I would just be having some kind of “irrational” reaction, with nothing associated with it and then would come the hailstorm of self-abusive thoughts- “What’s wrong with you?? Why can’t you function like a normal person! You’re feeling like you want to die because you saw a child crying from dropping his ice cream cone?? Don’t you think that’s a little RIDICULOUS? You’re a complete messed up loser case.” ~ Jackie
Jackie did a great job of describing how it feels to be triggered without knowing why (or even knowing that what you are experiencing is being triggered). I would like to build on what Jackie shared with my own experiences as additional examples.
Throughout my life (before awakening to the realities of the child abuse), I would feel a sudden onset or sway in my emotional state without knowing why. That’s just the way I always was, so I guess I didn’t realize that it wasn’t “normal.” I sometimes worried that I was mentally ill (especially since my mother was clearly mentally ill, although undiagnosed), so I never talked to anyone else about it or asked if they had this experience, too.
A good 5 or 6 years before recovering my first flashback, I remember sitting in my cubicle at work trying to understand why I was having such a severe reaction to something so “stupid.” I shared a cluster of cubicles with two other women who invited me to go to lunch. I declined because I had brought my lunch, and I didn’t want to disappoint my husband by spending money by eating out. (I now marvel that I used to think like that!)
The women returned from lunch laughing, and they finished a conversation in one of their cubicles that apparently had carried over from lunch. I was bombarded with deep feelings of shame, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Strange thoughts were racing around my head – “They are laughing at me. They hate me. They think I am so stupid for not going to lunch with them. I will never fit in anywhere. Nobody will ever like me. I am a stupid, stupid person who is completely unlovable. Why would anyone ever like a stupid person like me?”
Keep in mind that I had already earned a graduate degree from a Top Ten university, so I am clearly not a “stupid” person. Yet, the word “stupid” used to rattle around my brain and undermine my confidence, even though I knew objectively that I was smart. These women had invited me to join them for lunch, so they clearly did not dislike me. They probably did not think a thing about my declining their invitation other than that perhaps I didn’t have much spending money. (I later became close friends with one and got along well with the other, so I wasn’t picking up on any unspoken vibes.)
I wanted to react to this flood of emotions that came from seemingly nowhere, but I also knew objectively that I could not trust them. So, I had a lot of inner thoughts about recognizing that I cannot trust myself. I cannot trust these weird floods of emotions because they are not grounded in the reality around me. I made a conscious choice never to act on these floods of emotions and, instead, use only the logical part of my brain to decipher how I should logically act in a situation. Because I logically had no reason to be upset, I would disregard these feelings and try very hard to act like I don’t feel them. I certainly could not “trust” anything that I felt because it was so “off” from reality. It was exhausting to live this way, and it also prevented me from listening to my intuition.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Spent past four years with both flashbacks to recent traumatic events AND being triggered without visual or auditory memories. Just strong emotions and bodily reactions.
Now that I have wonderful person by my side who wasn’t scared away by those kinds of symptoms I’ve started to remember actual scenes from my childhood that I’ve repressed until now.
-Antti
Very very nicely stated.
Good effort to both you and your therapist.
Hi.
I do have a trauma therapist but actually this wonderful person is the lady I’m dating. The memories get triggered by the emotional and sexual closeness we have but she’s always there for me. I do my best to be there for her when she needs it.
And my therapist helps me make sense of it all and guides me so I stay safe. He’s also skilled in EMDR so that option is available. But for now it’s better to wait a bit so things don’t get overwhelming for me.
-Antti
That is interesting and familiar. I call myself stupid all the time when I feel frustrated with myself. Did you ever learn how to resolve or deal with all of this?
Speaking of triggers, though a bit off topic, have you ever heard of anyone being triggered by EMDR? My therapist is trying to do resource installation with me, and I literally ran and hid behind the couch in her office. What could be the reason for this? Am I just over-reacting?
Hi, Tasha.
I have heard of survivors of ritual abuse being triggered by EMDR, which is one reason that I have not tried it. Some ritual abusers will “program” the abused child using methods that can later cause triggering during an EMDR session. I, personally, am triggered by flickering lights, which I suspect was part of the “programming.”
- Faith
I asked my therapist about EMDR early on and she said. “I do use it if it is appropriate I will tell you if I feel it is appropriate.” I replied. Call the networks I got a straight answer from a therapist.” She was not impressed. It was early on I think she now appreciates my humor.
I asked her again a few years later and she said she did not think it was appropriate and did not think it ever would be with me.
I know one multiple who had EMDR and ended up on a fugue.
I expect that EMDR is appropriate for some types of trauma and some therapist apply it were it is harmful.
Thanks Faith and Michael for your feedback. I have at least 15 parts, and I would not be surprised if I were a survivor of ritual abuse. (What is the definition of that?) My father abused me sexually from age 6 months to 30 years, when I finally had the courage to leave my house. I have other abusers as well, but his was the worst. I wanted to use EMDR to reach accelerated healing, but I have also had success with IFS (Internal Family Systems) and am thinking I need to just stick with that.
Hi, Tasha.
Ritualized abuse is severe and ongoing trauma, typically by “experts” in traumatizing children. A good analogy is that ritual abuse is to regular child abuse as organized crime is to street crime. Both are traumatizing to the victim, but organized child abuse has refined the ability to traumatize the child even further, which is why there is such a strong link between ritual abuse and DID.
Here is how Chrystine Oksana defines ritual abuse in “Safe Passage to Healing”:
“Ritual abuse, therefore, is methodical abuse, often using indoctrination, aimed at breaking the will of another human being.”
- Faith
I have a friend whose therapist tried to do EMDR (the finger moving version where the eyes follow the finger and move right and left) with her. She had been abused by her mother -sexually, physically, emotionally- but I doubt she is DID. She couldn’t do it then because she couldn’t stand to have her therapist get as close to her as she needed to to do this. But more recently she had healed enough that she was able to try it again, and stayed with it. She did say it was very powerful this time but was waiting for some time to pass to see if it had staying power.
I am trying hard to be gentle on myself but I do feel frustrated because I have had over a decade of therapy on and off and I still have mainly emotional, physical flashbacks without vision or sound (though sometimes smell). I used to think this was because all my memories were from a time when I was pre-verbal and perceived the world blurrily however I have discovered that is definitely not true.
I know what happened to me but have no detailed memories. Then again, there is definitely a ‘narrator’ part to me who describes rituals in detail but I don’t get emotion with these, which makes them hard to believe, though I do believe them and often later find i am right to have done so. I hope, like the first poster, I will find someone who can work with me to remember. Though I’m terrified of remembering more as well, that’s why I need support to go through this I guess. My inner selves tell me often that the one holding the details of the memories inside is an animal.
Hi A x, the fact that your selves tell you there’s an animal holding the details is a great piece of information. What would you think about getting to know the animal, or seeing if it has a message for you right now? I see animals a lot in therapy and also think that they hold my memories. When I ask them what they want to show me, sometimes they give me information, sometimes they just say, “You’re not ready yet, but I’m here.” It is cool and can give me a more settled feeling for the time being.
I’m the same as you- I know what happened to me but have uncovered very little details/memories. The memories I do have, I wonder if I’ve “embellished.” My body knows what’s real. I trust the physical and emotional flashbacks…I hope to have more visual details one day too.
If you enjoy writing maybe you could ask this narrator part to write a bunch of stories. It may give you clues to your memories without terrifying you or re-traumatizing your psyche. It’s creative and taps into those darker, hidden parts…indirectly giving you information in a way that’s easier to process perhaps?
Thanks Jackie, I wish I could feel more comfortable about this, I think it is important for me to accept the animal parts are there and holding on to parts of my memories to protect me. I had very overwhelming physical and emotional flashbacks lately when I was told a bird part is holding the visual memories. I felt so despairing at this initially and then found comfort in a poem about the wonders of this particular bird. Funnily enough, I have written loads and loads of stories – or my narrator part has – and think I have become closer to the truth of my past that way, though the stories weren’t intending to be factual incredible details came out in the stories. All strength to you on your own journey.
Thank you, A x. I’m glad you found comfort in a poem about this special bird. The stories I’ve written are vivid and full of details that are quite meaningful to me even though they’re technically fictional. I can tell by how I react physically and emotionally that they are relaying some deeper truths. One day all the pieces will come together… My support goes out to you!
~Jackie
First time I have been afraid of a comment on my comment. It was arrogant of me to assume that only a therapist could be by someones side and listen just because that is my experience.
So Good Effort to who ever is by your side and listening.
I only started remembering the worst parts of my abuse about four years ago, and I feel I am still in the beginning stages of TRYING to work through it all. I have had (and still have) tons of times when I see something, and it triggers me–I don’t know why–it just does, and before you know it, I am in a complete panic, or I’m crying or shaking. There will just be a child playing, a tv commercial (weird, right?), or more frequently now, different smells or objects.
I have always seen myself as somehow different (many of you might remember me saying before, how I feel like a freak, and I feel damaged, broken, and dirty). I still feel this way–it is so hard for me not to!
In some ways, it is hard to understand someone saying that they WANT to remember everything that happened! In some ways, I get it–you want to GET IT OUT before it eats you alive, on the other hand, there is a BIG part of me that wishes I had never remembered at all!
Wow, I think I’m you. I could have written this post, except i think I am at 5 years.
I don’t know if it is validating or sad that someone has the same struggles.
It helps that you replied to my post, too. I feel sooooo scared and alone with everything! I’m not sure how you are suppose to be able to ‘work’ through something, when the memories, the nightmares, and the flashbacks keep happening! Then, when you add in the panic, the anxiety, and the weird reactions to certain objects, smells, child, or commercial, and I am totally overwhelmed and frustrated. When and how does it stop? There’s a BIG part of me that wants to just say–ENOUGH–I’M DONE! I have thought about just trying to convince myself and my therapist, that none of it really happened, that I made it all up! I’m guessing that probably wouldn’t work. But I don’t know what to do with it all anymore!
Twice in the past couple of weeks, I have been in an uncomfortable conversation with one of my kids who I felt was criticizing me without allowing me to defend myself. The first time, I was at a family get-together, and thought everything was fine. When she came up and started up with me, it got to the point where I *had* to abruptly leave. I held my tongue until I drove away, and then the anger flew. The second time came a little over a week later.
Same daughter – this time I came to apologize for offending her. At first we spoke calmly, but then again I felt like I was being attacked. In a split second, I felt myself change inside and I had to leave immediately because it felt like a matter of life and death. In both instances, I felt like a young child who had to flee for her life.
These incidents have been very embarrassing to me, as it looks like I can’t carry on an adult exchange. I can’t connect them to specific events in my life, but from reading this, and speaking with my therapist, I now realize that they were flashbacks. I am often overwhelmed with emotions that are horribly out-of-proportion, or by wanting to die, neither of which relate to my current life.
I always thought that flashbacks were only visual — I’ve only had one like that. Because of this posting, I now realize that what I’m experiencing are flashbacks, too. I hope that this knowledge will help me better deal with them.
That post feels like you are discribing me. I find it very difficult to tune into my emotions because they seemed like a run away train for so long so I learnt to ignore them. A little comment could leave me wanting to run away from friends instantly. I lost a lot of trust in myself. Its also very difficult to navigate through the world without access to feelings. I threw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. I am learning to pay attention and respect my feelings again. They are always trying to tell me something. thanks again for your posts, I always feel less alone after reading them
Oh my goodness. O.o I didn’t even think of this as why I react so strongly to certain things. Now, I usually know if I’m triggered, but I still don’t a lot of the times…and I do the same thing if someone’s laughing and I’ve just interacted with them, it’s like I always assume they *must* be laughing at me, even when there’s no earthly reason they would be.
It’s like how I’ve been figuring out that so many of my reactions over the years were because of insiders…not just me going crazy or somehow regressing back to Gawd-knows-when…
Like a lot of people, I react really strongly to smells. The right perfume wafting from someone at the bus stop or the wrong kind of air freshener in a shop; they can make or break my day.
Also, being abused, including SA, exclusively by women from the age of 3, possibly younger, gave me some weird gender issues. I’ve never doubted that I’m female rather than transgendered, but I have a loathing of a lot of things associated with women, the main one being clothes. It shows how strong and seemingly irrational this triggering business is, because I’m fine with underwear; bras etc; but I can’t stand most outer clothes. The kinds I can wear I can’t if the particular item is navy. Why navy?? It’s ludicrous, I even look good in navy, but I just can’t have it on my body. Similarly, I’m fine with necklaces, I like a necklace, but never in a million years would I get my ears pierced.
It’s funny how you can develop a huge list of rules about the tiniest things in everyday life. Sometimes you can pass them off as individual preference, like my feelings about jewellery, but other times you have to jump through hoops trying to explain why you just *can’t* work in a certain room, or wearing certain clothes that are part of your work uniform, blah blah blah. I don’t mind triggers so much, but how to fit your life around them?
I was searching to web to find any research to validate my most recent experiences. I had a nightmare, the part that sticks with me
***********possible trigger********
is I am so afraid because my parents are leaving the room and I am supposed to follow. I am afraid because they are leaving him without closing his eyes. I close his eyes, they dont shut all the way the first time. A couple of my fingers get moisture on them his eyes. That has stayed with me for days, that feeling. Corrie has been screaming and her emotions consume me. She gave me only 1 very quick picture a few weeks ago… its a picture of a small boy’s penis chopped off from the body and chopped in half on a white ceramic type plate. Last night she was consuming me and kept saying they buried him in the backyard. I have no memory of that. I have no memory of anything I am talking about here. For her it is a reality, when she consumes me there is no other reality. But for me it is not. I had another nightmare I had a brother and he died. I was crying so hard in the dream I could still feel it when I woke up. What prompted me to research was I remembered early on when I started talking to faith. I woke up to a conversation in my head. The statement that woke me up was the voice yelling at me about how I had a choice to run and the baby didn’t. I feel numb about it all at the moment but I wasn’t sure who the baby was, except later just accepted the baby was another alter. But now maybe a brother. ??